Category — t. Disney’s MyMagic+ Project and Expansion Plans

(See also What You Need to Know Now About Fastpass+.)

ON JANUARY 23, 2014, TRADITIONAL FASTPASS DISAPPEARED, AND FASTPASS+ BECAME THE ONLY OPTION

On January 23, all the Disney World theme parks became be FastPass+ only.  The old “legacy” Fastpasses are gone.

As of now,

• Guests in Disney owned hotels and in the Swan and Dolphin can book FastPass+ beginning  60 days before their arrival date.
• Everyone else with a linked ticket can book FastPass+ beginning 30 days before their visit.

YOU NEED TO HAVE SIGNED INTO “MY DISNEY EXPERIENCE” TO RESERVE FASTPASS+ AHEAD OF TIME

You can’t do anything for Fastpass+ ahead of time unless you’ve signed in to My Disney Experience.  Go to MyDisneyExperience.com to sign up and sign in.

YOU NEED YOUR HOTEL RESERVATION LINKED TO GET FASTPASS+ 60 DAYS AHEAD OF TIME

When you are in MyDisneyExperience (henceforth “MDE”), check “My Reservations” to see if your hotel reservation is there.  If not, you’ll need your reservation number.  With it in hand, find the button that says “Link a Resort Reservation.”

YOU CAN ONLY MAKE FASTPASS+ RESERVATIONS IF YOU HAVE LINKED TICKETS

Your tickets need to be linked to your MDE account for you to be able to use it to pre-book FastPass+.

NOT ALL OFFERINGS ARE THE SAME ALL DATES FOR ALL USERS

FastPass+ parades and fireworks seem to be released much closer to arrival date than 60 days. So far, they seem to be showing up for the next month near the end of the current month .

“BE OUR GUEST” WORKS COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY THAN FASTPASS+

The chance to reserve Be Our Guest for counter-service lunch is actually unrelated to the Fastpass+ test.  As near as I can figure out, anyone with a Disney hotel reservation can try for such a reservation.  You need your 12 digit numeric reservation number.  See this for more on how to get this.

CRASHES, FRUSTRATION, INCOMPLETE STUFF ARE STILL ALL TOO COMMON

Reports suggest this is going fine for most people, and gets better every week, but that crashes, incomplete data, mystified cast members etc., are still all too common…

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WHAT FIRST TIME VISITORS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DISNEY WORLD’S FASTPASS+ PROGRAM

(See also Frequently Asked Questions about FastPass+.)

I’m gonna focus here on prioritizing your FastPass+ at each park.

(Note that if you are using one of my itineraries, this prioritization is already done for you.)

I’m assuming that you will still arrive at the parks early in the morning, well before opening.

Arriving plenty early means you can experience at least one more headliner with a low wait beyond what you can get on FastPass+.  Since you will be limited to 3 pre-booked FastPass+, this is a big deal. (You can add fourth and following FastPass+ one at a time in the parks once your first three are used.)

Picking your early morning target is tricky.  There’s two good ways to pick:

1. A ride with a really distinctive queue that you will largely miss if you go through the FastPass+ return line—for example, Test Track and Expedition Everest.
2. A ride you know you will want to see again, since you can only pre-book one FastPass+ per ride per day—more relevant to returning visitors who know what they want to repeat than for first timers.

So based on this, and on what’s being offered right now for FastPass+, here’s my suggestions by park:

FASTPASS+ AT EPCOT

Epcot: Plan to arrive early and see Test Track.  Target for FastPass+ first Soarin, then Mission: Space, and then Spaceship Earth.

FASTPASS+ AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Plan to arrive early and see Rock N’ Roller Coaster. Have Toy Story Mania be your headliner FastPass+, and your next priorities Tower of Terror and the Frozen Sing-along.

FASTPASS+ AT DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM

Disney’s Animal Kingdom:  Plan to arrive early and see Expedition Everest.  Prioritize Kilimanjaro Safaris as your first FastPass+ selection, then Kali River Rapids and DINOSAUR.

FASTPASS+ AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM

Magic Kingdom: Much tougher, as there are many rides that build long lines quickly.

The ones to target are Anna and Elsa Meet n Greet, Big Thunder Mountain, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Peter Pan, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

There’s enough there for two or three days’ worth of FastPass+ at the Magic Kingdom.

So here’s the thought for now:

• FastPass+ Priority Targets:  Anna and Elsa (lines can be too long even at open), the Mine Train Ride (same reason), Splash Mountain (you don’t want to get wet at open)
• Park opening first ride (without FastPass+) targets: Space Mountain, Peter Pan, Big Thunder Mountain
• Other possible priorities: Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion

There’s many ways to do this. Here’s one approach:

• Day 1 at the Magic Kingdom: Plan Peter Pan at open, then FastPass+ Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain
• Day 2 at the Magic Kingdom: Plan to repeat the favorite from Day 1 at open, then FastPass+ Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, and Enchanted Tales with Belle
• If you have a third day at Magic Kingdom with a morning, then plan to save the first ride for a repeat of a favorite, then book as FastPass+ repeat visits to Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Peter Pan—almost everyone’s list of Magic Kingdom favorites includes at least two of these three…

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In yesterday’s discussion of Disney’s quarterly earnings, CEO Bob Iger discussed the timing of MyMagic+, Disney’s future program which among other features will enable people to reserve Fastpasses well in advance of their visit.

He said that MyMagic+ will “probably” see “full rollout in the early part” of Disney’s Fiscal 14.

Disney’s fiscal year begins in October, so mathematically the “early” part of it extends from October through March. Moreover, “full rollout” could range from full use of Fastpass+ in the parks to a much lower ambition–full use of the capability to reserve Fastpass+ ahead of time, which likely will precede full use in the parks by 60 days or so.

So, ignoring that “probably,” the range of possibilities the words will bear is from full use of Fastpass+ in the parks in early October to just full use of the website to book them beginning in later March 2014.

Add the “probably” back in–a needed word, as Disney is still testing the systems behind the offering–and there’s really no new insight to be gained from this call about the timing of Fastpass+.

So there’s no basis here for me to change my proposition that we won’t see widespread use of Fastpass+ in the parks until calendar 2014…

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THE NOMURA MEDIA AND TELECOM SUMMIT AND FASTPASS+

Fastpass+ is a new, not-yet-released Disney World program that will allow…and perhaps require…Fastpasses to be reserved well in advance of a visit.

(Len Testa has a great write-up of what’s known (not a lot) and what can be reasonably speculated about Fastpass+ here.)

I predicted back in early April that the earliest date we’d see this consequentially operational in the parks would be October 1, and nothing in Disney’s early May earnings call led me to revise this date to earlier.

I thought a telling exchange on this call was the following (bold added by me)

Analyst: “…in terms of [the Fastpass+] timeframe, would that be something where by fiscal 2014 you would think we start to see some impact?”

Bob Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company: “Yes. I think–well, I definitely believe we’ll see some impact in fiscal 2014. That is certainly our plan…”

Disney’s fiscal 2014 starts in October 2013. This waffling is sensible—you don’t want to announce a date before you are confident in it, and Disney can’t be confident in Fastpass+ until a number of systems issues are resolved, and lots of further testing happens.

Now Jay Rasulo—who was also on that call, and is Disney’s CFO—was at the Nomura Annual U.S. Media and Telecom Summit last week, and of course got a similar question.

Here’s what Jay had to say about the timing of MyMagic+, the overall program of which the major element will be Fastpass+:

“…MyMagic+… will probably launch before the end of this year in its, I don’t know, I won’t say totality, but largely be launched by the end of this year and fiscal year.”

So my take-away?  October 1 is still the earliest date I’m seeing for the widespread in-park use of Fastpass+, but if I had to bet, based on just the passage of time and the comparative words used between these two early and late May sessions, I’d look for an even longer timeframe…

I’d now guess for a formal widespread opening of Fastpass+ for reservations sometime between late September and early November, with the first pretty full use of the program in the parks beginning no earlier than January 4 or 5, 2014—after all the holiday crowds are gone.

This is just a forecast—it could be earlier, especially if the launch in the parks explicitly excludes Thanksgiving week and the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s or even later.

But that’s my bet now—no widespread use of Fastpass+ in the parks until 2014.

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Disney released its Q2 2013 results (covering December 30, 2102 through March 30, 2013) yesterday, and discussed them with analysts.

(The earnings report and 10q are herehere.)

I haven’t made my way through the 10Q yet, but based on the earnings release and call, a couple of observations:

• The key component of MyMagic+, Fastpass+, may not even open this year
• MyMagic+ will indeed have special perks for guests staying at a Disney-owned and -operated resort
• I’m even more convinced we won’t see any 2013 free dining for US residents other than the September offer that will come out tomorrow

THE TIMING OF MYMAGIC+

An analyst specifically asked CEO Bob Iger when MyMagic+ would open.  Prior statements had implied it would open this spring—which has been unlikely for a while now. This time, Iger said that “the goal is to roll it out at some point this year.”  When later asked if it would have an impact on earnings “by” fiscal 14 (that is, October 2013) Iger said it would have in impact on earnings “in” fiscal 13.

I forecast more than a month ago that the earliest we’d see a general roll out of My Magic+ and Fastpass+ would be October 1.  I’m sticking by that as the earliest date, but can now easily see this date slipping to November 1 or January 5.

EXTRA MYMAGIC+ PERKS FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTEL GUESTS

It’s been long assumed by thoughtful observers that MyMagic+ will provide extra perks to those staying in a Disney-owned and operated resort, for obvious business reasons.

But yesterday’s call was (so far as I can remember) the first confirmation of that.

Iger (or CFO Jay Rasulo, I forget which) said in response to an analyst’s question that MyMagic+ will continue the tradition of providing perks to on-site guests not available to off-site guests and “encourage people to stay more on property than off property.”

There’s no credible scoop on how this might unfold.  Because of the high value to Disney of people pre-planning their park visits (and hence limiting those darned spur-of-the moment choices to see Harry Potter) the offer may be more complicated than people have been predicting.

For example, the simplest approach is to offer more Fastpass+s per day (OK, what’s the right plural of Fastpass+?) to on-site guests than to off-site guests.  But this doesn’t keep them in Disney World on their off days.  Adding extra Fastpass+ to the later days of a visit based on how many earlier days are scheduled (or more simply but less effective, on how many ticket days are bought…) would both drive ticket sales and keep people on property.

Just a thought…

MORE FREE DINING IN 2013?  MY FORECAST IS STILL “NO WAY”

Disney’s domestic parks and resorts really shot out the lights this quarter.

While a big part of the improvement (about $70 million of a $161 million operating income improvement compared to a year ago) came, as I’d noted it would in my comments on the Q1 call, from differences in the timing of Christmas and Easter school breaks vs. Disney’s fiscal quarter timing, another big part came simply from increased attendance and increased spending per attendee.

There’s no way to tease out how much of this came from Disney California Adventure and a full quarter of the Disney Fantasy cruise ship, vs. Walt Disney World itself.

But Disney did note that resort hotel bookings in the current (April-June) quarter were running 7% ahead of last year, at rates comparable to last year.*  These rooms are overwhelmingly at Disney World, so they are a cue to ongoing strong performance.

This performance, and these booking levels, means that Disney simply doesn’t need to discount to bring people in the way it had to in 2007-2012.  So it won’t.

I expect we will see continuing room-rate discounts for the slower periods, but, other than the September free dining deal that will come out tomorrow, I’m even more convinced we won’t see any more Free Dining in 2013.  Free dining is just too expensive to Disney to offer—and too complicated to administer—compared to the value it creates for the company.

MORE ON THIS CALL

Jason Garcia does a nice job with the Disney World-related facts of this call here.

*When asked why rates weren’t higher and if Disney was discounting too much, Rasulo noted that Art of Animation was added to the inventory in 2012, and, as a value resort, it necessarily drives overall average realized prices down.

Not quite true. Because so much of Art of Animation is pricey Family Suites, average rack rates at the resort are well over $200.  A much bigger driver of Q3 2012 vs. 2013 rate oddities is the different timing of the Easter price season—entirely in Q3 in 2012, and only half in Q3 in 2013.

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GOODBYE TO THE AFTERNOON PARADE AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

The Afternoon Parade at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun, had—so far as anyone knows—its last run on Saturday April 6. No explanation has been given, nor any replacement announced.

There’s not much of a loss here—this was a lame parade, especially in comparison to its immediate predecessor, the great Block Party Bash.

But it’s been a while since Disney World has closed a parade with no replacement—the last I can think of is Epcot’s Tapestry of Dreams parade, which I think was the last parade to run at Epcot, and closed in 2003.

So it’s interesting to speculate about why and about what, perhaps, is next.

WHY DISNEY WORLD MAY HAVE SHUT THIS PARADE DOWN

Disney Word shuts stuff down all the time—sometimes, because a new offering just isn’t that good, but most commonly for one of two reasons:

• To create budget or space capacity for something to be fixed or to be created new, or
• To just save money

I’ve written extensively elsewhere about the somewhat perverse characteristics of park operating economics that, to the grave annoyance of fans, can lead Disney to simply cut stuff to save money.

If saving money is the goal, a parade is a great target for elimination.

A parade at a Disney World park involves a ton of labor costs—not just the obvious ones like the wages of the parade performers, but also all the time that other park cast members have to put into tasks ranging from taping out the viewing areas, to crowd control during the parade, to putting everything away and cleaning it up, and even to running extra buses right after it ends—as many guests leave the park right after they see the parade.

Now the complexity on figuring out what come next—that is, a new parade or not– is that even when Disney adds something new, it often does something to cut costs well in advance, so that the portion of the extra development costs that can’t be capitalized are somewhat offset by the cost reductions. This lets budgets be met…but you don’t know if the goal was just to cut costs, or to create space and budget for something new, until the something new is announced…

WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS: CARS LAND?

There’s been some speculation that the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun parade—and also the Disney Channels Rocks show, also with a lot of staff, also closed—have been shut down so that the road they stage on (Prospect Road) or begin the show on (Hollywood Boulevard) could be repaired, or puffed up with something new. Could be—I don’t know nothing one way or the other.

But my suspicion is that the afternoon parade at the Studios is gone for the foreseeable future.

I get there by noting that the massive change in 2011 from the wonderful Block Party Bash to the lame Pixar Pals Parade only made sense at the time as a cost cutting move.

The result was a lame and widely dissed offering (though I loved seeing Doug), which makes me think that what came out in 2011 was a compromise between those who wanted the parade shut for cost-saving and operational complexity reasons, and those who wanted to salvage any afternoon parade, even one that was a shadow of its predecessor.

But why then close it for good now? And what’s next? Well, a version of Disney California Adventure’s Cars Land at Hollywood Studios has been much rumored, and much wished for, especially after the move of its lead designer, Kathy Mangum, to Disney World last summer.

Given everything Disney has been saying for a couple of years now about smashing down capital spend to “routine” levels after the multi-billion investments in the Disney Cruise Line, Disney California Adventure, Art of Animation, New Fantasyland, and MyMagic+ wind down this year, it’s hard to see where the cash comes from Cars Land at the Studios…

…but there’s a couple of things that have happened since Disney first started talking about ramping down capex that makes me willing to fan the speculation.

• One is that Disney has re-learned the lesson at Disney California Adventure that great new rides, if they bring in more visits and/or relieve congestion at another park, can have a fine payback.
• Second is that Harry Potter has had a second installment announced since then…

I don’t see Avatarland being canceled to pay for Cars Land, if for no other reasons that the Animal Kingdom according to everybody’s math really needs some new “E” Ticket rides for MyMagic+ to work well there.

But in response to what it has learned about the cash flow of Cars Land and to the threat of Harry Potter 2, I can see Disney World working pretty hard to generate extra cash and to deploy more capital than it had already been planning on something like Cars Land at the Hollywood Studios, so long as it can still make the claim to the analyst community that the funds are coming from “routine capital.”

Cars Land at the Studio would likely go into the area now occupied by Lights Motors Action and the Backlot Tour.

See the aerial photo. (Click it to enlarge it.) The bruited-about possible area for Cars Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is within the large red circle.

Now note how landlocked this is, because of the way World Drive, the guest entrance road from World Drive, and Buena Vista Drive hem in the park.

The only sensible point right now for construction access is from the cast entrance on Buena Vista (small orange circle). But that’s not an area of Buena Vista that can take much more traffic, and the road from there to the red circle has some turns that construction cranes and such would find awkward.

So maybe Disney’s thinking about generating a construction access point and staging area from the World Drive entrance to the Studios, somewhere around the red X. And maybe that’s the rumored “road that needs to be re-built.”

And maybe that’s why Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun and Disney Channels Rocks are gone—not only to save cash for reinvestment, but also to free up their staging and storage areas for Cars Land construction!

Just speculation…probably wrong…but still fun to dream about!

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